Carole Alden

Ancestors

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Biography

My tree is at Ancestry.com and rootsweb. It was too large to upload a gencom file. It's called Alden/Baker. I was born an ALDEN, however, I didn't have much chance to use this name. My parents, Robert V. Alden and his wife, Donna Baker were divorced when I was six months old. My father came back from WWII a different person, details weren't given but everyone was afraid of him. After their divorce I grew up with my grandparents and used their surname, BAKER. I wasn't told my real name until I wanted to get married. So for my early life I was Carole Lynn Baker born April 17, 1948 Jackson, Jackson Co., MI. After getting my second divorce, I decided to become an Alden again since I was born one, but never was known as one. There were several more lines that were separated because of divorce and I've found them and shared the wonderful picture collection that has been passed down. Some didn't know their real surname. My grandparents didn't live long enough to see me grown but I had their values planted in me and was able to make my way. With a 9th grade education and a GED I went to college part time for years and graduated from Spring Arbor Univ. May 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts.

I had a neat experience when I was going threw my matches for the YDNA I had my uncle Nathan Channing Baker do for me. My grandparents are very distantly related but I didn't have the lines back that far then and one of the matches had come to Lenawee Co., MI. and I had never heard of this Baker branch before. We matched 65 out of 67 and the two that were off were off by one number. Since I had no idea who they were I started by looking at who they were marring and I noticed many Quaker surnames from my grandmother's side. Living in Michigan and having taken a black history class years ago, when one of them married a Haviland I had to wonder about the underground Rail Road. Sure enough, they were connected to that group that came here in 1830 to run a UGRR and opened a school for all children, black, white female, male. After Charles Haviland died Laura carried on the work including doing speaking tours to explain about slavery. They had the first anti slavery society in Michigan. There's a statue of her I believe in Adrian, MI. My grandmother always told me the Quakers didn't believe in fighting. Follow these and you'll see many of them joined the civil war. Also on the census you'll see the group wasn't just Quakers. Some of the census asked for your occupation and this group happened to have a lot of ministers. What was such a surprise to me was that you could see a Baptist or Methodist minister in the same family as the Quakers. They were working together in 1830 and thirty years later the whole north came together to fight slavery. Dna makes history very relative.

All turned out pretty well. I got to meet dad and found out first hand that he wasn't safe to be around. He died in prison and I didn't learn about it for years. I don't know what kind of treatment he was given but he was a wonderful person before the war. My aunt Pat's diaries mention him often and talk about the good times they had. I've got some great research stories I could tell, I didn't know much at the beginning so I started with my Baker line who left me a hugh trail to follow, right down to leaving their pictures at the library. I've even cried over the libraries index card file. What could M mean? .... Manuscipts

My 2 Great Grandfather, Nathan Baker called N.A. Baker, belonged to the SAR also drew a family stream. He didn't include everyone, I think he drew it for another family member who was joining the DAR and drawing the stream helped explain our relationships. My grandfather was left a large collection of pictures and I wanted to carry down the stream to living people and share his collection. I knew from the beginning his great aunt Lily didn't know what happened to her grandchildren after her son divorce and my grandfather and his brother stopped talking years ago. When we went out west he stopped in every town after we crossed the Mississippi and looked in the phone book for him. He had no idea that he had died. With DNA I'm able to go backward in time and find out things that have been forgotten and pass on the infor to those in the future. What a great time to be alive. I'm exciting about this website

I've been so lucky to find people and family members to share pictures with me that I never got to see as a child in the Alden side of the family. I can't tell you what it's like to see my grandfather ect. for the first time. Bless you and Thank you.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Carole Alden at registration.